With its majestic mountains, fabled forests and legendary landscapes, Wales is a country rich in mythology and tales of dragons and warrior princes.
Now, there’s a new chapter of Welsh folklore being written, or rather carved, on its hillsides by passionate trail builders.
It was back in the mid-90s that dedicated riding spots started to become a reality for UK mountain bikers. The ‘grand trail wizard’ who made that once-unimaginable dream come true is Dafydd Davis, a Welshman who’s arguably the father of British trail building.
His vision was to create a network of Welsh trail centres, which he did in style, beginning with Coed y Brenin in Eryri/Snowdonia.
In addition to these popular venues, Wales is now home to many excellent gravity-fed, privately-run bike parks.
We visited three trail-building maestros to find out how their minds (and spades) conjure up these magical adrenaline-infused ribbons of dirt…
Dan Atherton
Creator of: Dyfi Bike Park
The leading line-layer of the all-conquering Atherton family moved from the South West of England to Wales with his siblings many years ago.
After a near-lifelong obsession with building trails and jumps, Dan – or Athy, as he’s known – created the extreme downhill track known as Hardline.
Atherton then went on to create the 650-acre Dyfi Bike Park.
Having hand-carved trails there for years, Athy knows what to focus on when digging Welsh soil. “Building in Wales is different to anywhere else,” he tells us.
“Ideally, you’d want a drain on both sides of the track, but that’s not always possible.
“The aim is that the tracks should run as well in the wet as in the dry and that’s hard, especially when it comes to jumps.
“So, we build for the wet and people brake a bit in the dry.”
Since opening up his trails for all to ride, Atherton has found keeping on top of the Welsh water margin is an eternal battle.
“Dyfi Bike Park is actually built on a fairly mellow gradient, so drainage is even more important,” he explains.
“In lots of places, the only way to keep the track well-drained was to dig down to the bedrock, and that could mean shovelling through a metre of bog.
“Bike parks are actually really hard to maintain, compared with something like the Red Bull Hardline track.
“It’s the combination of the sheer amount of traffic and the volume of water that comes down that’s the biggest killer.
“The trails have a mind of their own and they’re constantly evolving – a section that’s been fine for a year will suddenly flood.
“Luckily, we have a solid dig crew and so we’re constantly monitoring. We just need to be on it the whole time.”
With a reputation for building extreme trails, how has Atherton learned to tone it down to suit us mere mortals?
“I’ve definitely shifted from building every track as a challenge to understanding that people sometimes just want to have fun," he responds.
“Our [bike park] riders have [Dan's sister] Rach to thank for that – right from the start, she’s been coming up when I’m in the digger, saying, ‘Stop! Make it smaller!’.”
Rider input has also been crucial in the evolution of the trails.
“Chatting on the uplifts, week in, week out, listening to what people want to ride, that’s a really important part of the experience, for me. People who ride here are so good at giving feedback.
“At first, they’ll feel bad, because they’ve seen how much work we’ve put in. But they know we want them to be honest, so they’ll say what it is they most want to ride.
“The biggest thing I’ve learned is that people need to take it a bit slower sometimes.
“We’ve got three red tracks open now, and it’s brought a whole new set of riders to the park – it’s great to see how much their confidence builds, even in a day. We started out with just black trails.
“They were hardcore and people were a bit intimidated to ride here, but we’re a lot mellower now. I haven’t seen anyone who hasn’t given [red trail] ‘Lovey Dyfi’ a good go!”
Without a doubt, Atherton’s greatest hit is the Hardline track – used for the annual race that attracts some of the world’s best downhillers and freeriders – but how did it come to fruition?
“We’d got bored with World Cup tracks that didn’t hold any technical challenges," says Atherton.
“They were just about going fast, and we wanted to reclaim that feeling of working out how best to tackle a feature, of challenging yourself.
“The early years were definitely a transition for me – the stuff I’d built before was always for us to ride, so it took a while to adjust.
“Riding your own tracks and riding something someone else has built are very different experiences.”
He elaborates: “I was so comfortable with that mountain, that dirt, because I’d been riding there for 15 years. But riders would turn up from America and it was so alien to them.
“I was surprised by how uncomfortable they were, but if I’d gone to their local, I’m sure I’d have felt the same.
“It was surprising to see the level of self-preservation that people operate on, and how sensible they are. I saw it at Hardline and it’s a good thing – even more so at the bike park.”
Duncan Ferris
Trail crew lead supervisor at: BikePark Wales
A former DMR team rider turned master builder, Bristol’s Duncan Ferris has had a hand in the creation of many a famous trail over the years and is now head digger at the 1,200-acre BikePark Wales.
“I started by helping with the construction of the World Cup 4X track in 2004 and that slowly turned into a full-time profession,” he explains.
“By 2010, I was part of [trail design/building company] Architrail, and later, [pump track specialists] Velosolutions.
“Projects ranged from the Commonwealth Games and Olympic Legacy courses to multiple trail centres and pump tracks.
“I’ve also done a number of Mexico street-race course builds, and a Pump For Peace project in the kingdom of Lesotho, Africa.
“I’m now part of the team at BPW, where I’ve had the opportunity to do projects such as our Vanta trail, which we worked on with Red Bull and Laurie Greenland.”
With an amazing 49.5km of trails already in place at the park and plans to add another 50km, how does the planning process work?
“First, we look at the gaps we have in our current network and work out what would benefit the park. This steers us in a certain direction and we can then take customer feedback and trail crew input, and narrow down the desired options,” Ferris explains.
In-depth personal riding experience and monitoring also play a huge part in how the trails evolve.
“The trail crew and I are best-placed to see how the trails are used. We see which are the most popular, and which sections the riders are enjoying. This gives us an invaluable insight into what would benefit the park and our customers.”
An important part of the job is ensuring that every trail reflects its [ability] grading, to keep riders safe.
“We have a pretty strict grading system, and we’ll decide what grade a trail will be given before construction even starts. This way, we have well-defined parameters to work from and a clear objective.
“It’s taken many years to refine our grading system. Mountain biking is inherently risky, and the ability to categorise a trail into a bracket of difficulty can’t be defined by only using someone’s level of skill.”
Needless to say, there’s also a good amount of personality built into each track. “Trails will always evolve throughout the design and build process,” Ferris says.
“The initial idea will develop and grow, and things like ground conditions and the trail builder’s style will inevitability influence what’s built on the ground. It’s a very fluid process.”
Unlike most trail centres – which are government-owned and managed by Natural Resources Wales or similar – the Welsh bike parks are privately run.
They have to adhere to strict guidelines when it comes to designing and building new trails. “Part of that is to consult with ecologists and archaeologists, to mitigate any adverse effects the trail might present,” Ferris explains.
“It’s then a balancing act with the trail’s sustainability and its effect on the surrounding landscape. We use our experience and judgment when making these decisions, because each build is unique and will have different parameters to work within.”
James Foster
Trail crew lead supervisor at: Revolution Bike Park
“Build it and they will come,” Kevin Costner famously said in Field of Dreams, and that’s exactly what brothers James and Tim Foster did when they sold their worldly goods, pawned the family silver and headed to North Wales armed with nothing but a bold dream, very limited trail-building experience and a degree of personal riding cred.
Their creation, Revolution Bike Park, proved hugely popular. Unfortunately, Revs, as it affectionately became known, is currently closed due to larch disease, but James and Tim are determined to get it up and running again as soon as possible.
How on earth did they find such a hidden, remote location?
“We were living in Cornwall, and quite quickly narrowed down the search to North Wales as a place that would work for the business and be somewhere we’d actually like to live,” James Foster explains.
“We looked at various sites before deciding on Llangynog, as we felt that the site worked, and we loved the village and area. The whole family pooled all their assets and savings, and we bought the forest.
“Tim worked really hard to involve the village as much as possible early on in the project and to be transparent about what our plans were. They’ve been amazingly supportive from day one. We’re very lucky to have stumbled upon such a great community.”
With only 120 acres to play with, the brothers knew a bike park would be a tight fit, but decided to go all-in anyway.
“We’d travelled to various places in Europe to ride, and it gave us the idea that we could build something similar on a more condensed scale in the UK.
“At that point, there weren’t many full-time uplift-serviced venues here, so we thought we’d have a go. We first had to build a road to the top of the hill and then everything followed and grew from there.”
Within their confined space, James and the trail builders created a masterpiece of efficiency. “We plan it by the lay of the land,” he explains.
“I’ve spent 12 years on that hill and I’m familiar with pretty much every corner of it, and more importantly, what’s underneath it. Knowing where the good dirt is allows me to plan for DH tracks or big jumps.
“The main aim is to build stuff that we actually want to ride. We’ve had a few different members of the trail crew over the years, and all have been passionate riders, so everyone’s had an input and helped to create what we all enjoy.
“Anything that we make, we always come back to over time to make it better, so the trails are constantly evolving.”
With trails such as the 50:01 and Vision lines, Revs has a well-earned reputation as the playground of the famous faces of the gravity elite.
But with the pandemic and the recent venue-closing outbreak of tree disease, they’ve had a tough time balancing the books.
Revs 2.0 is now in the planning stage, although mother nature and the strive for perfection mean it’ll be a while before they can reopen.
“The hill has been cleared of trees and we’re in the process of finalising the replanting plan,” explains Susha Reynolds, the venue’s business manager.
“It’s a steep learning curve and a very expensive job to replant, but obviously essential to ensure the future of the park and reinstate the habitats for wildlife. It should happen in early spring. We can then begin the next steps.”
She adds: “We very much intend to bring the park back, but don’t want to do it in a way that’d be detrimental to the reputation we’ve built over the past 12 years. We’ve neither a real timescale, yet, nor an opening date in mind, but it’s likely to be years, not months, unfortunately.”
However long it takes, you can bet it’ll be worth the wait.